Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Holy Smokes.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the show, Ridiculous Historians. You could have been
Speaker 1: anywhere in the world today, but you chose to be here,
Speaker 1: and for that we are grateful. My name is Ben,
Speaker 1: my name is nol Ben. Have you ever been to
Speaker 1: Rhode Island? I have multiple times. Yeah, I haven't. It
Speaker 1: seems really small on the map, though, what's it like?
Speaker 1: It is? Uh, it is very small. Every time I've
Speaker 1: been to Rhode Island, I've been driving through it, so
Speaker 1: I've I've stopped at places that were convenient along the road,
Speaker 1: but I have not spent any time there to one
Speaker 1: of those places where you might you blink and you missed.
Speaker 1: In super producer Casey Pegrum, have you ever been to
Speaker 1: Rhode Island? I have not. I was just saying off
Speaker 1: Mike that a band, I like a lot lightning Bolt
Speaker 1: comes from Rhode Island, and then I kind of associate
Speaker 1: them or Rhode Island with Risdy and like all the
Speaker 1: cool stuff that came out of the Rhode Island School
Speaker 1: of Design. Right, A lot of bands, uh turns out
Speaker 1: go to art school first. Yeah, I think David Byrne, Right,
Speaker 1: maybe I think Seth McFarland from Family Guy went to
Speaker 1: Rhode Island School of Design. Did he really is Cohogan
Speaker 1: Rhode Island? I think it is, Yes, Rhode Island School
Speaker 1: of Design, prestigious academic institution. Today's story for those of
Speaker 1: us following along at home, is one one more notch
Speaker 1: in our quest. When we're step in our quest to
Speaker 1: do an episode about all fifty states in the United States.
Speaker 1: You see, years and years and years and years before
Speaker 1: the Rhode Island School of Design existed, there was something
Speaker 1: called the Gasp be a Fair. This took place in
Speaker 1: Rhode Island, and it's it's an historical incident of great
Speaker 1: importance and has some funny parts of the story. But
Speaker 1: it's a story that's unfamiliar to a lot of us
Speaker 1: in the modern US. It's sometimes regarded as what the
Speaker 1: first naval engagement of the American Revolution. Uh, It's sometimes
Speaker 1: called Rhode Island's version of the Boston Tea Party. Right,
Speaker 1: but what happened exactly? Before I tell you what happened,
Speaker 1: I tell you some other notable rizz de alarms. The
Speaker 1: entire talking heads went to rizz D. I knew it, Yeah,
Speaker 1: But apparently David Byrne only made it like a year
Speaker 1: or something. That makes sense. He's to use too much
Speaker 1: of a kupta, follow the rules of an art institution.
Speaker 1: And also we've got James Franco's perfect, Perfect Sam Hide,
Speaker 1: Remember Sam Hid. Yeah, anyway, I'll tell you what happened
Speaker 1: during the Gaspy affair. So the ship in question, the
Speaker 1: gasp was hot on the trail of the Hannah, which
Speaker 1: was a smuggling ship from America, and it ran aground
Speaker 1: off of the nam Quit Point in Providences nar Anga
Speaker 1: Sette Bay. Wow, that's a tough one. What do you
Speaker 1: think ben nar Ango, Sette Narain, Narragansett Boom. I'm going
Speaker 1: with Narragansett, the Narragansett Bay. And that was on June nine.
Speaker 1: Uh So John Brown, who's this American merchant um was
Speaker 1: not feeling good about British taxes on on the things
Speaker 1: that he was selling. So he rode out to the
Speaker 1: gas Pop with some other guys colonists, and they took
Speaker 1: over the ship. They got rid of the crew, and
Speaker 1: then they set the ship on fire. When I say
Speaker 1: got rid of, I don't mean that they killed them.
Speaker 1: I just mean they escorted them off the vessel. Right,
Speaker 1: So that's the that's the top level story, right, How
Speaker 1: did we get here? The action kind of begins brewing
Speaker 1: in seventeen sixty three. As a consequence of the French
Speaker 1: and Indan War, England has gained control of Canada, Florida,
Speaker 1: and the land west to the Mississippi River. To protect
Speaker 1: these territories, the British need an army to you know,
Speaker 1: they want to position an army along the frontier. It
Speaker 1: makes sense, but it also requires some cold, hard cash.
Speaker 1: And because the British Crown doesn't want to have to
Speaker 1: foot the bill itself, they go to the thirteen colonies
Speaker 1: of what would later become the United States and they say,
Speaker 1: give us some scratch. The colonists say, heck no, how
Speaker 1: dare you? For two reasons. First, they said, why are
Speaker 1: we gonna pay for an army on the border when
Speaker 1: the British won't let us settle in these new lands again,
Speaker 1: they won't let us settle in Canada, Florida lands west
Speaker 1: of the Mississippi. And then they said, second, why are
Speaker 1: the British attempting to take more control over colonial trade
Speaker 1: after they had already let us operate with a somewhat
Speaker 1: free hand for over a century, right, and then these
Speaker 1: taxes are getting past in seventeen sixty four. People in
Speaker 1: the colonies generally did not like paying taxes. Rhode Island
Speaker 1: gets super pod about this because the taxes target commerce,
Speaker 1: and this is a very small colony and other than
Speaker 1: the Bay, they don't have a lot going on. And
Speaker 1: there was this whole practice that you might have read
Speaker 1: about in history class called merketilism, where British colonies were
Speaker 1: required or to only trade with England. And there had
Speaker 1: been sort of a kind of a grace period, I
Speaker 1: guess where folks in ports cities like Newport and Providence,
Speaker 1: um in Rhode Island had been making a fair amount
Speaker 1: of money and trading with partners from all over the world.
Speaker 1: Now that was not going to be happening anymore. So
Speaker 1: adding additional tax to this already kind of simmering situation
Speaker 1: of resentment was not a good thing. That's right. And
Speaker 1: let's let's also paint the picture here. Rhode Island at
Speaker 1: this time is a lot more edgy than the Rhode
Speaker 1: Island of modern day. It's a notorious heighi hole for
Speaker 1: smugglers and privateers, and people are evading taxes left and right.
Speaker 1: The British government are pretty much just attempting to enforce
Speaker 1: the law. Granted it is a law that they made
Speaker 1: without much say so from the colonists. So they passed
Speaker 1: specifically the Sugar Act, and then they bring six ships
Speaker 1: across the pond two enforce this act, and one of
Speaker 1: these vessels as a vessel called the Gaspy. The people
Speaker 1: of Rhode Island did not dig the enforcement of these
Speaker 1: new laws. Uh. They attacked the HMS St. John in
Speaker 1: seventeen sixty four. Five years later they burned the HMS Liberty,
Speaker 1: a customship as it was in Newport Harbor, and by
Speaker 1: seventeen seventy to the gas b is a known problem
Speaker 1: in the bay because they are almost working on commission.
Speaker 1: They want to collect as much custom that as much
Speaker 1: taxation as they can because they get a slice of
Speaker 1: the pie. And a lot of this goes back to
Speaker 1: a guy named Lieutenant William Duddingston. That's such a weird name. Uh,
Speaker 1: I was going to pronounce it. Yeah, he feels like
Speaker 1: it dud to me though. So he was the commander
Speaker 1: of the gas and he was the one making the
Speaker 1: call to be as aggressive as the gasby was, so
Speaker 1: once they've moved up into the bay, his tactics really
Speaker 1: start getting on the colonists nerves. He is hunting everybody ships,
Speaker 1: from you know, the large merchant traders who sail across
Speaker 1: the ocean, to really small traders who are just kind
Speaker 1: of going up the coastline, even down to people who
Speaker 1: are just trying to make a been catching fish. He's
Speaker 1: a real pill. And they were even ordered to take
Speaker 1: supplies from farmers in the area without asking them. They
Speaker 1: were just stealing. It's not a good look, not a
Speaker 1: good He was despised. He was universally despised, and rightly so.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean and as time went on, um,
Speaker 1: he kept using these really users, kind of mean spirited,
Speaker 1: aggressive tactics, and it kept rilling up these colonists and
Speaker 1: it was really an untenable situation, right. Yes, even the
Speaker 1: governors of colonies wrote to the British saying that the
Speaker 1: Gap Speak crew was out of pocket. This is my
Speaker 1: one of my favorite parts. Uh, this goes back for years.
Speaker 1: Seventeen seventy two, Governor Joseph Wanton says that in addition
Speaker 1: to robbing the colonists, harassing them. They also insult the
Speaker 1: colonist with quote the most abusive and contumelius language. Contumelius.
Speaker 1: I'm not familiar with that word, but I think I
Speaker 1: will adopt that one for myself. Um so it's true. Yeah,
Speaker 1: kunchu melius c O N t U m E l
Speaker 1: I O U s. And of course, as a guy
Speaker 1: with the name like Dudingston, Duddingston would do. He refused,
Speaker 1: and he kept this disruptive behavior going all throughout the
Speaker 1: Narragansett Bay. And then on June nine, the gaspet chooses
Speaker 1: the wrong customer right, they try to stop and search
Speaker 1: the craft called the Hannah. The Hannah is a small
Speaker 1: trader from Newport. It's going from Newport to Providence. The
Speaker 1: captain of the Hannah as a fellow ben His name
Speaker 1: is Benjamin Lindsay, and he says, first off, he says
Speaker 1: heck na, and then they say okay, and they fire
Speaker 1: some warning shots and he goes, whoa super nah. And
Speaker 1: then Lynn See lures Lieutenant Duddingston into an area off
Speaker 1: of nam Quid Point. And this is there's a there's
Speaker 1: a method to the madness here. Because Captain Lindsay knows
Speaker 1: that this part of the bay will be very shallow
Speaker 1: at the low tide, and by two o'clock the Gatsby
Speaker 1: is run aground, the Hannah races away making its escape,
Speaker 1: and then as soon as Lindsay gets to Providence, he
Speaker 1: tells person we mentioned at the top, John Brown, what happened.
Speaker 1: This is important because John Brown was probably the most
Speaker 1: well off man in the community, right he sure was. Alright. So,
Speaker 1: starting here, we're gonna give you a little bit of
Speaker 1: a re enactment type play by play that we got
Speaker 1: from New England Historical Society dot com seventy two Gaspy
Speaker 1: Affair Road Islands tea party ship burned. So it starts
Speaker 1: with on ordering eight longboats to be delivered to Finner's wharf,
Speaker 1: and he wanted them to be treated in a certain way.
Speaker 1: He wanted them to have silencers applied to their oars
Speaker 1: and oar locks. I can only imagine that that would
Speaker 1: involve some sort of fabric or you know, some sort
Speaker 1: of cushion that you would put there so they wouldn't
Speaker 1: make those sounds. He then got a drummer, a little
Speaker 1: drummer boy, to go around the town and announce that
Speaker 1: the gaspe had run aground, and that anyone that wanted
Speaker 1: to get in on the destruction should go to the
Speaker 1: home of one James Saban, who lived right next to
Speaker 1: Finner's Wharf. And this is where another player enters the game,
Speaker 1: Efrem Bowen. I don't know any efforts nowadays. Yeah, he's
Speaker 1: about nineteen years old, and he grabs his pops gun
Speaker 1: and powder and shot and then he runs over to
Speaker 1: James house and he sees there's a crowd of people around.
Speaker 1: There are some people are working on musketballs in the kitchen,
Speaker 1: and then he sees his pal kid around his age
Speaker 1: Joseph Buckland was there too, And just remember that guy
Speaker 1: for leader in the story. That night there's no moon, right,
Speaker 1: it's really dark. So those muffled oars and oarlocks help
Speaker 1: a lot. More than a hundred people row out in
Speaker 1: long boats to the gaspeet. Old Lieutenant Duddingston is awake
Speaker 1: and he leans over the gunwale. It sounds like he's
Speaker 1: in his jammie's and he says, who goes there? And
Speaker 1: then this guy, Abraham Whipple says, I'm the Sheriff of
Speaker 1: the County of Kent. God you I have a warrant
Speaker 1: to apprehend you. Damn you, so surrender mouth on this guy?
Speaker 1: Al Right, what happens next to Duddingston? No doubt taken
Speaker 1: aback by this? What's the word been? What kind of
Speaker 1: languagelius language? He clutched his pearls, but he would clutch
Speaker 1: something else in just a minute, because you see are pal.
Speaker 1: Joseph Bucklin, who was standing aloft the main seat of
Speaker 1: that long bow, one of the longboats that was surrounding
Speaker 1: the ship, realized that he had Duddingston in his sights, right,
Speaker 1: and so he be He calls to his buddy from
Speaker 1: He calls him f E. I guess that's Feffy for sure.
Speaker 1: F what have you? Uh? He says, reached we our
Speaker 1: gun and I can kill that fellow. No, no, no doubt,
Speaker 1: he said, quite loudly, And uh it's true. Buckland then
Speaker 1: fired at Duddingston, hit him in the arm once and
Speaker 1: then the lower abdomen. Uh, And he exclaimed again, according
Speaker 1: to this account, which I love, this language is delightful,
Speaker 1: I have killed the rascal. And that's when Duddington took
Speaker 1: a fall um and he thought, uh that he he
Speaker 1: was a goner. Yeah, I don't believe everything you see
Speaker 1: in films and fictional television, even if someone has been
Speaker 1: shot before, literally everyone on the planet is surprised and
Speaker 1: horrified by the genuine pain of a gun shot. It's
Speaker 1: always like the first time. So old Lieutenant Dudds thinks,
Speaker 1: this is it no more for the Dudster. The dudster
Speaker 1: bites the dust. Things like that. I'm sure he was thinking.
Speaker 1: And people in Rhode Island today will sometimes still celebrate
Speaker 1: this shot, the shot fired by Buckland, as the first
Speaker 1: shot of the Revolutionary War. So the crewmen of the
Speaker 1: Gatsby are captured and they're loaded onto these long boats
Speaker 1: that have been surrounding them. This is shortly before dawn.
Speaker 1: They had left one boat and the leaders of the
Speaker 1: raid behind the Gatsby crew. The plan was to take
Speaker 1: them to the cellar of a house and then uh
Speaker 1: Old Duddies. Lieutenant Duddies was taken separately to see a doctor.
Speaker 1: He was not, in fact mortally wounded. Uh The leaders
Speaker 1: of the raid prominent Rhode Islanders like uh the opium
Speaker 1: and slave trade kingpin John Brown, wealthy student town Abraham Whipple,
Speaker 1: the foul mouth sheriff. They hang on then they start
Speaker 1: going through stuff on the ship. Right, they go through
Speaker 1: Lieutenant Duddington's papers, and then right is picture. This is
Speaker 1: so cinematic. Right as dawn is breaching the horizon, they
Speaker 1: set fire to the gaspee, they board their long boat,
Speaker 1: and then they sail away while people are watching the show,
Speaker 1: literally watching the show the way we watch fireworks. Because
Speaker 1: the ship doesn't just slowly burn. We have to remember
Speaker 1: this ship had gunpowder on it. So in the way
Speaker 1: you see like a car, for example, in a movie,
Speaker 1: go off a cliff, it sits for a second and
Speaker 1: then explodes. That would never really happen with the car,
Speaker 1: But a burning ship full of gunpowder, there's gonna be
Speaker 1: a boom. Just wait for it. It's gonna be fun.
Speaker 1: And this is where it takes a weird turn right
Speaker 1: because it feels like the end of the story. That's
Speaker 1: not quite the end, because you see the British is
Speaker 1: the Porties were still around, They're still very much in play,
Speaker 1: and they decide we are going to investigate this gusts
Speaker 1: be affair, and they opened a case on it June
Speaker 1: tenth two and this case winds on for a year,
Speaker 1: but it runs into a big problem. Despite the numerous
Speaker 1: people who participated in the raid. Despite the many more
Speaker 1: people who watched the ship burned down and explode, new
Speaker 1: one said they knew anything about what happened that night,
Speaker 1: who was involved, how it happened. There was nobody would roll,
Speaker 1: nobody would snitch. Everybody knew nothing. As soon as the
Speaker 1: British came around. Yeah, and it wasn't even until America
Speaker 1: got independence from Britain that the real story came out, right,
Speaker 1: which is hilarious. Yeah, So here's the thing, the gasping
Speaker 1: affair we heard about Governor Joseph Wanton. He really was
Speaker 1: in hot water because he was a buddy of John
Speaker 1: Brown and a simple theiser of the plight of the
Speaker 1: colonists and the merchants, right, Yeah, he was in this
Speaker 1: rock and hard place situation because Governor Joseph Wanton was
Speaker 1: also a wealthy merchant. He was friends with other wealthy
Speaker 1: merchants like John Brown, a ring leader of the raid,
Speaker 1: and he sympathized with people other merchants in the colony.
Speaker 1: And like these British customs officials are just jerks, they're
Speaker 1: real heels. They are rude. They talked down to us.
Speaker 1: But I don't want war with the British, says Governor Wanton.
Speaker 1: So he appointed, he's appointed chairman of the Royal Commission
Speaker 1: of Inquiry. He does his best to soft pedal the investigation,
Speaker 1: to delay proceedings, to kind of play kate British authorities
Speaker 1: like we're doing the best we can, will update you, etcetera.
Speaker 1: And everybody in Rhode Island is a united front. Nobody
Speaker 1: is going to roll on these raiders. And that is
Speaker 1: why the official finding the committee was are you ready?
Speaker 1: This was undertaken by persons unknown. I love that expression
Speaker 1: person is unknown, just in general. It's just kind of
Speaker 1: ultimate absolution of let it go. It's up there with
Speaker 1: Mistakes were made. Mistakes were indeed made, and you know,
Speaker 1: we said Wanton was kind of looked at as a
Speaker 1: sympathizer because he was pals with with Brown and his family, um.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, when the American Revolution did
Speaker 1: break out in seventeen seventy five, he was branded as
Speaker 1: a loyalist because he didn't want war with Britain. But
Speaker 1: he was actually a bit more neutral and that groundwork
Speaker 1: that he laid during the Gasping Affair sort of protected
Speaker 1: him from the Patriots when all hell broke loose, and
Speaker 1: they did not ransack his home as they would have
Speaker 1: with other governors. Yeah, they were. They were pretty much
Speaker 1: from what we can tell, during the course of the war,
Speaker 1: the patriots and the revolutionary forces. When it came to Wanton,
Speaker 1: they pretty much told him to just stay out of it,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, mind your business, don't get
Speaker 1: in our way, and we won't get in yours. Thanks
Speaker 1: for having our back during that Gaspy thing, and it
Speaker 1: did play a huge role. The possibility that the Gaspy
Speaker 1: Raiders could be sent to Britain and tried for treason
Speaker 1: and given the death penalty really scared the colonists, and
Speaker 1: rightly so they started forming what they called committees of correspondence.
Speaker 1: These things became kind of like shadow governments, and in
Speaker 1: a very real way, they were catalysts for what we
Speaker 1: call the American Revolution today. There's one last note to
Speaker 1: this story for everybody worried about our buddy, our pal
Speaker 1: the Dutters. He did survive. He had a close call,
Speaker 1: he did almost bleed to death, but he was saved.
Speaker 1: He continued his naval career and eventually he died a rich,
Speaker 1: happy old man in Scotland. Not too at you know,
Speaker 1: there were there were a lot of hurt feelings. There
Speaker 1: was indeed a revolution, but in this city as televised.
Speaker 1: The revolution was not televised at that point, was though
Speaker 1: at least probably there was a blog. I think there
Speaker 1: was a blog that was also mainly based on recipes.
Speaker 1: But to read the actual recipe you had to go
Speaker 1: through this uh five to tempt paragraph story about what
Speaker 1: the recipe meant. Oh, that's the worst, and then you
Speaker 1: get to the part where it like says show more,
Speaker 1: and then it's a bunch of ads and then maybe
Speaker 1: under that you get the recipe. But we digress. This
Speaker 1: is kind of a parallel event to the Boston tea
Speaker 1: party and that it represented Rhode Islands kind of we've
Speaker 1: had at moment, right, Yeah, and there's this there's something
Speaker 1: amazing to an inspirational about how communities can band together,
Speaker 1: you know, to to enforce what they see as justice.
Speaker 1: Because anybody at any point could have turned around and
Speaker 1: given the British the evidence they needed for a species
Speaker 1: where three people have a hard time uh cooperating right
Speaker 1: in general, to have an entire community do that is
Speaker 1: impressive and astonishing. We hope that you enjoyed today's episode,
Speaker 1: and we would like to hear from you. What are
Speaker 1: some more little known strange conflicts in American history that
Speaker 1: you think your fellow listeners would enjoy. You can find
Speaker 1: us on Facebook, you can find us on Twitter. You
Speaker 1: can find us on Instagram, not just as a show,
Speaker 1: but as individuals. I am Ben Bolan on Instagram having
Speaker 1: various uh strange adventures, and I am Ben Bolen hsw
Speaker 1: on Twitter. You can find me at how Now, Noel
Speaker 1: Brown on Instagram. I've got a Twitter, but I don't
Speaker 1: really use it. I just use it to creep on
Speaker 1: other Twitters, which is a legitimate use of Twitter. And also,
Speaker 1: have you ever seen have you ever seen those uh
Speaker 1: parody accounts where the idea is the American Revolution but
Speaker 1: with Twitter, like what founding fathers would have said Twitter,
Speaker 1: It's hilarious. I do follow a Frederick Nietzsche account though,
Speaker 1: so it's probably along those lens. Yeah, yeah, I can
Speaker 1: see that too, as always thinks to super producer Casey Pegram,
Speaker 1: as well as Alex Williams, who composed that banging track
Speaker 1: you hear at the beginning of every episode. Thanks to
Speaker 1: research associate Gabe lose Here, and our good buddy Ryan Barrish,
Speaker 1: who continues to give us a hand and hopefully we're
Speaker 1: hearing from very soon thanks to Christopher haciotis here in spirit.
Speaker 1: I have a surprise for you. Know, I did not
Speaker 1: tell you about for a while. We've both been traveling
Speaker 1: a lot, so it took me a second. As you know,
Speaker 1: circumstances found me in Japan. Uh and as I like
Speaker 1: to do when I get a chance, I got you
Speaker 1: a souvenir. Se casey, I got you something too, but
Speaker 1: I didn't bring it with me today. Words. It's a hat,
Speaker 1: it says Nagoya. It's a sport cap of the snapback
Speaker 1: of variety, and it has a lovely little stylized Japanese
Speaker 1: a fish dragon creature on the side, and it's just lovely. Ben. Well,
Speaker 1: there you go, switching it out right now, right, all right?
Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, I hope you enjoyed. Don't feel obligated.
Speaker 1: You don't have to. I just thought of you when
Speaker 1: I thought I had. It's in the sound of meat,
Speaker 1: making it very large for my large head. Can I
Speaker 1: here it goes? Oh it's still too Nope, still too small. No, No,
Speaker 1: I've got I've got to put it on the last
Speaker 1: little click here because quite alright, it's still a little tight.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's for eating. No, it's perfect. There's like a
Speaker 1: little splash of color on the brim to a little
Speaker 1: splash of color. Yeah, yeah, all right, yea is it hypercolor? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it is kind of iridescence, like the scales of a
Speaker 1: Japanese dragonfish. There you go, Thank you very much, but
Speaker 1: I love it. We'll see you next time Fox. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows.